By Peter Van Buren

    There has been an unprecedented effort to destroy Donald Trump rather than defeat him at the polls. Those concerned about democracy being in danger need only look at the list of efforts to destroy him which began before his first election, continued with gusto and anger during his term, and the lawfare episodes which followed Trump’s departure from office.

    All of this is unprecedented in American politics (albeit all too common in third-world politics) and itself threatening. Trump almost seems to grow stronger with controversy, but what “normal” candidate would want to run for president knowing they would be exposed to such efforts not just to beat them with votes but to crush them as human beings? With apologies to Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” let’s take a look back. In no particular order:

    The Russian collusion and dossier hoax

    Pee tape accusation

    Obama’s CIA asked foreign intel agencies to spy on Trump campaign

    2016 post-election effort to turn state electors into “faithless Hamilton electors" to select Hillary

    Mueller hearing and report

    Efforts to use the Emoluments Clause against Trump because of his hotels

    Various calls from military officers and analysts for extra-legal interventions and coups

    Alfa Bank ping hoax

    “Drink bleach” hoax

    Soldiers are “suckers” D-Day hoax

    The “bloodbath” hoax

    The diaper hoax

    Claims that Trump violated British law with his Scottish golf course

    Claims U.S. Air Force personnel en route to the Middle East illegally stayed at the Scottish golf course on per diem hoax

    The Trump gave away intelligence info to Putin in Helsinki and elsewhere hoax

    Putin is Trump's spy handler hoax and Trump has been an agent since the 1980s

    Celebrities’ Twitter contest about the best way to decapitate Trump

    Mark Milley telephone call to his Chinese counterpart about who is in charge of America's military

    Antifa/BLM riots and effort to storm the White House grounds

    Trump violates posse comitatus after BLM riot hoax

    Impeachment I

    Impeachment II

    Cassidy Hutchinson lying about Trump lunging for the steering wheel to take control of his limo from the Secret Service on January 6

    Demands that Mike Pence invoke the 25th Amendment

    Claims by various medical professionals that Trump is mentally ill

    “Experts are desperate to warn the public”: Hundreds sign Dr. John Gartner's Trump dementia petition

    Hunter Biden laptop “Russian disinformation” hoax supported by Joe Biden

    “51 intelligence authorities” ruse to help elect Joe Biden

    MSM blackout of Hunter Biden laptop story

    Twitter purge of conservative accounts

    FBI using Twitter and Facebook to suppress unwanted news

    “Five police officers were killed” at the January 6 “insurrection” lie

    The murder of Ashli Babbitt

    The 2020 alleged “missing ballots”

    E. Jean Carroll lawsuit(s)

    FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago

    Letitia James prosecution “show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime” with no victims, no monetary loss

    Effort to bankrupt Trump with civil judgment

    Alvin Bragg bootstrapping off an inert federal suit over Stormy Daniels "hush money" with perjurer Michael Cohen as star witness

    Fani Willis/Nathan Wade Georgia pretrial affair

    Jack Smith's federal 2020 election and January 6 case

    Colorado, etc., attempt to remove Trump from state ballots under the 14th Amendment.

    “Supreme Court ruling darkens critics’ hopes for a judicial curb on Trump”

    “We need to stop deluding ourselves that a majority of the Supreme Court sees the same political emergency that many of us do in terms of the threat Trump poses to American democracy”

    Trump will “take revenge,” “demand retribution,” ensure a “bloodbath,” and “end democracy” (America’s last election if he wins)

    Claims Trump will incite political violence and insurrection if he loses

    Constant calls to pack the Supreme Court (after the Left lost the majority), to end the filibuster (when Democrats again control the Senate), to add two new states (provided they are D.C. and Puerto Rico) and four new senators, and to end the Electoral College if Dems lose the presidential election again

    The take-away from all this is how much of the effort to destroy Trump would not have been possible without the active participation of the mainstream media. Even leaving aside Democratic and deep state propaganda organs like MSNBC, the list above shows much more than “collusion” between the Democrats and the media; it shows participation. None of the hoaxes, from the massive effort expended on the Russia story to the almost silly tirades when Trump uses a word like “bloodbath,” would have been possible without the active participation of the media in promoting and shouting out the “story.”

    Perhaps the most compact example would be the 51 former intelligence officials claiming Hunter Biden's laptop looked like Russian disinformation. The group put out a press release but it took a triple punch to make it effective in the 2020 campaign. Punch one was the media dissemination without verification of the accusations. Punch two was Twitter in particular and the rest of the media in general deep-sixing the laptop story and failing even to lift a finger in investigation. Punch three was Biden repeating the accusations as fact in one of his debates with Trump. How could he lose?

    He didn’t. And that is the real takeaway here, the need to remain ever-vigilant against the misinformation machinations of the deep state, the Dems, and the media as we edge closer to the presidential election this November.